


An Untamed Fire

by ShyFicWriter



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst and Feels, Fire, Fire Magic, Fire Powers, Firebending & Firebenders, Gen, Magic, On the Run, Reader-Insert, Running Away, accidental injury, pyrokinesis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-18 14:28:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16996743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShyFicWriter/pseuds/ShyFicWriter
Summary: The team is on a mission on Berhert when something goes awry, prompting you to flee.





	An Untamed Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Reader-Insert where the reader has magic-like powers (think OUAT, if you’ve seen it), but she can’t control them and she accidentally hurts the Guardians with her powers, prompting an Elsa-like fleeing.

You were looking rather distant sitting at the table in Benatar when Peter came up to you and sat down. 

“What’s up, buttercup?” he said, nudging you in the arm. 

“Nothing.” you just continued staring into the void, barely acknowledging him. Peter could tell you weren’t your usual self, but decided not to press it just yet. He instead informed you that the ship was about to land on Berhert and that you should come up to the flight deck with the other’s to strap in. You followed silently, your thoughts elsewhere. You had a secret and it was eating you inside. It was the only thing you could think about lately, and you were becoming increasing worried the other’s wouldn’t understand, that they might peg you as dangerous and cast you out. To be honest, you had no idea how you had been able to hide it from them this long since it started to rear it’s head into your life again.

You strapped yourself into your seat and allowed your thoughts to consume you.

About 15 minutes later you were all climbing out of the ship to look around the forested planet. You were hired to harvest some Vyloo eggs for a buyer on Xandar, but that didn’t mean you all couldn’t take some time to stretch and enjoy the forest. 

You were walking aimlessly around the clearing when you tripped over a root which sent you sprawling into Rocket.

“Ow! Watch it!” Rocket growled as you scrambled to your feet.

“I- I’m sorry.” you stammered. “It was an accident.” 

“Well if you’d stop walking around with your head in the clouds then maybe you wouldn’t trip over your own feet! ” Rocket seethed, irritation high in his voice. He had been becoming increasingly miffed in the change in your demeanor lately. He found it highly annoying how you had become so distant and jumpy and how you never seemed to want to play pranks on the others anymore or listen to jokes, or anything really. You mostly stayed in your room and when you did come out it was like you were a zombie. 

“I said I was sorry.” Normally you wouldn’t let his words get to you. Normally you would have fired right back, but with everything on your mind you were more than a little jittery.

“I’m SorRY.” Rocket mocked. “Since when are you this soft? Maybe you should retire from the team if you’re going weak on us.” he scowled. He didn’t know what had happened to you, his friend, or why you had changed, but this is how Rocket dealt with pain, by lashing out.

“Hey!” you shot back through gritted teeth at the raccoon. You could feel hot anger rising in your chest.

“Rocket calm down.” Gamora warned. “It was just an accident.” She looked at you with concern, seeing the pain from his words paint your face.

“What? Am I wrong? Look at this baby. Are you gonna cry, little baby?” Rocket jeered, noticing your eyes start to well up with angry tears. You always hated that about yourself, how you’d cry when you got angry. You clenched your fists, preparing to yell back at the raccoon when suddenly your expression turned to fear. You took a step back.

“No-” you gasped.

“What?” Rocket asked, confused at the sudden change in your expression, and then he started to feel the heat. 

Smoke had started to rise from the raccoon’s tail. He jerked and started batting at it, exclaiming in pain. Groot exclaimed in concern, not know what was wrong but knowing his best friend was in trouble.

Then the tip of Rocket’s tail burst into flames.

“Whoa Whoa Whoa!” Peter exclaimed, ripping off his jacket and using it to smother the fire on Rocket’s tail.

While the other’s were in commotion, making sure Rocket was ok and asking how that could have happened, you just backed away, chest tight and absolute terror across your face.

Rocket noticed this once Peter let him up from beneath his jacket and his expression quickly turned dark. “ _You._ ” he growled. He didn’t know how, but he was sure you were responsible for this in some way.

“No! I- I-” you stammered, backing away. Rocket made a move towards you but Peter grabbed him. However that didn’t stop what you did next.

“St-stay back.” your voice shook as you jolted back from Rocket’s advance, and a small patch of grass between you and the team lit up and burned out like sparklers, starting near your feet and fanning out about a yard in front of you, making you jump back in fright and the other’s gasp. “Oh no. Nonono.” you said in panic, backing away. You looked up to see the surprised and shocked expressions of your teammates. “I- I’m sorry… I didn’t mean- I can’t-” you stuttered, jumping again as a thin fallen branch next to Drax set alight, Drax immediately moving to stamp it out.

Peter looked at you with confusion mixed with shock and concern, as did Gamora. A frightened Mantis was holding an equally frightened Groot and Drax finished up stamping out the fire on the branch, looking up to you in consternation once the flames were out. Rocket continued to glare menacingly at you from Peter’s hold on him.

“I’m so sorry!” you say though tears, and then you ran.

“No! Wait!” Gamora called out to you, but it was too late, you were gone. Peter tossed his jacket to Gamora and instructed the team to take care of Rocket’s tail, stating that he was going after you.

***

You wiped tears from your eyes as you ran as fast as you could through the dense forest. You should have known something like this would happen. You had been afraid of this ever since your problem resurfaced a few weeks ago.

You were helping Gamora cook one night, cutting up some vegetables while Gamora seasoned what you previously cut before adding them to the pot with the rest of the meal.

Some of whatever she had been using to season the food with found it’s way up your nostrils and caused you to need to back away and turn from the prep area to sneeze. When doing so you hear Gamora exclaim in alarm. 

“What happened?” you asked, turning to see the burner was now off.

“It was as if the fire just decided to lash out.” she said. “It just suddenly covered the whole pan and in an instant put itself out.” She moved to turn it back on.

“Well, it seems to be working fine now.” you respond, to the best of your ability acting as if nothing was wrong, even though you knew otherwise. This was the start of your recent fight for control over your abilities. You couldn’t count the number of items you had to either mend, hide, or dispose of the past few weeks because you accidentally set them aflame or scorched them, thankfully when the other’s weren’t watching. Once you made some amaranth explode almost like Earth popcorn upon getting startled, but fortunately you were able to blame it on the vegetable being near the lit stove.

You had suppressed this power ever since it first presented when you were a child. Your parents warned you of the dangers and helped you conceal it, but never actually attempted to try to teach you how to control it, as they were afraid of it themselves. Eventually you were able to contain it completely, much to your parent’s relief. However, now it seemed perhaps that was the wrong route to take. You had suppressed your power so long it was now forcing itself out like lava from a long dormant volcano.

Somehow you had been able to hide it from the others for weeks, until now. Until today most of the fires you started were small and easily snuffed out. Occasionally someone would ask if anyone smelled something burning and you’d need to pretend like you hadn’t just smothered a small fire, or quickly dumped your bottle of drink that spontaneously began to boil, and then would need to more permanently hide any further evidence once they left.

You continued to run until you came across a thicket of branches and crawled inside, greatly needing the rest. You curled your knees to your chest and sobbed. You didn’t know what to do next, you had no plan. Did you really expect to be able to hide forever? That you could just set up a new life on a forested planet as some kind of a hermit?

Your thoughts are interrupted when you hear footsteps running nearby and Peter shouting your name. You kept as quiet as you could, not willing to face him or the others, and not sure if you ever could again. You steadied your breathing until you couldn’t hear him anymore, and then your sobs began anew.

***

Two hours later Peter returned to the rest of the team, distressed and exhausted. “I couldn’t find her. I would have kept looking, but it’s getting too dark to see anything.” he panted.

“We’ll look for her together at first light of dawn.” Gamora reassured, placing her hand on his back as she led him onto the ship. “She can’t have made it very far on foot.”

“Yeah, if she doesn’t burn the whole planet down first.” Rocket sneered.

“Rocket!” Peter warned.

“What? You saw what she did! She burned my tail and started 2 more fires with her mind! I say when we find her we take both her and the eggs to Xandar and leave them both there. The Nova Corp can deal with her then.”

“She’s our friend! We’re not just going to abandon her!” Gamora scolded. 

“Well what else should we do? Find her and act like nothing happened? She’s dangerous. You saw what she did to me!”

“What? You think she set you on fire on purpose!?” Peter said, gesturing angrily. “She can barely hurt a bug!”

“Well do you honestly expect me to believe she didn’t know she could do that! I saw her face! That was the face of someone who’s secret just got let out. She ran because she knew she royally messed up!”

“No.” Drax interjected, soberly. The other three turned to face him. “That was the face of fear. I don’t think she could control what she was doing. I think she was frightened by what she had done.”

“I think you’re right.” Gamora agreed. “But why would it have only just started now?”

“Well, she’s from Earth too, and I can tell you other people there don’t exactly take kindly to stuff like that.” Peter admitted. 

“What do you mean?” Gamora and Drax turned to him, confused.

“When I was a kid I learned in school that like 300 years ago or something they used to burn witches. If someone accused you of having special powers, they’d tie you to a stake and burn you alive.”

The other three looked shocked to hear this but said nothing. They didn’t realize Terrans could be so cruel to their own people.

“Nobody does that anymore, but that doesn’t mean her folks wouldn’t have told her to suppress her powers to protect her. I don’t know how it works, but if she’s been suppressing them all her life maybe she just can’t hold them back anymore.”

“That would explain the lack of control.” Gamora realized. “You can’t control something you were told never to use.”

“And also why she ran.” Drax added. “She must have been afraid we’d kill her.”

Rocket had remained silent for a while, thinking about what he had just learned, his features softening for a moment before the scowl returned when he finally spoke back up. “Fine. Do what you want. But don’t expect me to help you guys look for her. I’m going to sleep.” With that he left the room.

“Yes, we should probably all try to sleep.” Gamora said, looking to Peter and grabbing his hand. “The sooner we do the sooner we can wake and start looking for her again.” She knew you and Peter had a special, almost sibling-like bond after your years together and she could only guess the anxiety he was feeling in response to you having run away. She looked Peter in the eyes before departing to head to sleep herself. “Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

Before following Gamora’s lead to get some rest Peter took one last look out into the dark forest, praying to whatever higher being that might exist that you were safe before whispering sadly into the darkness, despite knowing you were nowhere near to hear it, “Sis, why didn’t you come to me?”

**Author's Note:**

> Part 2 coming soon.


End file.
